West Zone concessionaire Maynilad Water Services, Inc. (Maynilad) has reduced its Non-Revenue Water (NRW) volume by 47% since it was re-privatized in 2007. From 1,506 million liters a day (MLD) in 2007, when the NRW was 66%, Maynilad’s water losses now stand at 800 MLD by the end of June 2013 for an NRW level of 38%.
In effect, Maynilad has recovered over 706 MLD of potable water, which is enough to serve 706,000 customers.
The dramatic water loss reduction resulted from Maynilad’s aggressive and ambitious NRW management program. This program includes the establishment of District Metered Areas (DMAs), massive leak repairs, total and partial pipe replacements, active leak detection, among others.
In the last six years, Maynilad established 1,330 DMAs (as of June 2013), repaired 179,016 leaks and replaced 1,027 kilometers of old, leaky pipes. It is also the first water company in Asia to use state-of-the-art leak detection technologies like SAHARA—a leak detection equipment used for large diameter pipelines.
In recognition of its remarkable impact in improving the living environment, the Maynilad NRW Management Program was declared as a best practice by the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-HABITAT) and the Dubai Municipality last year.
“The water distribution network in the West Zone was very inefficient when we took over. But because we wanted to deliver better water services to more customers, we invested over ₱12 billion pesos to rehabilitate and modernize our pipe network and other non-revenue water activities,” said Maynilad President and CEO Ricky P. Vargas.
Non-revenue water (NRW) is defined as the gap between the amount of water put into the distribution system and the amount of water for which customers are actually billed. A high level of NRW is one of the major challenges facing water utilities today. High levels of NRW reflect huge volumes of water being lost through leaks (real/physical losses), water not being invoiced or not being accurately measured (apparent/commercial losses) or both.
District metering is used against leaks. A district is a defined area of the distribution system that can be isolated by valves. Quantities of water entering and leaving pipes can thus be metered. Analyses of flow and pressure enable Maynilad to calculate the level of leaks in its concession area.
Maynilad is the largest private water concessionaire in the Philippines in terms of customer base. It is a concessionaire of the MWSS for the West Zone of the Greater Manila Area, which is composed of the cities of Manila (all but portions of San Andres & Sta. Ana), Quezon City (west of San Juan River, West Avenue, EDSA, Congressional, Mindanao Avenue, the northern part starting from the Districts of the Holy Spirit & Batasan Hills), Makati (west of South Super Highway), Caloocan, Pasay, Parañaque, Las Piñas, Muntinlupa, Valenzuela, Navotas and Malabon all in Metro Manila; the cities of Cavite, Bacoor and Imus, and the towns of Kawit, Noveleta and Rosario, all in Cavite Province.